9 Reasons Why International Technical Assistance Programs Should Take Advantage of IBC Digital Bridge

Because using the IBC Digital Bridge platform during planning and implementation of international technical cooperation (assistance) programs means:

• moving away from supply-driven and costly on-site approaches, and instead,
• reinforcing innovative need-driven technology empowered mobile and systematic approach that create trust and mutual understanding among the technical assistance process participants, and makes technical cooperation (assistance):...
  1. Need-driven: technical cooperation takes place in response to country-beneficiary’s priorities;
  2. Owned by beneficiary: with high level of involvement on part of the country-beneficiary, since the initiative comes from them;
  3. Conducive to pooling technical assistance funds: sponsors pool their funds for selected technical cooperation initiative(s) to improve coordination and encourage country leadership;
  4. Clear about roles and results expected: technical cooperation beneficiaries and sponsors work together starting submission of Technical Cooperation Initiative to sponsor;
  5. Supportive to building mutual trust based on information exchange and face-to-face interaction using the platform and shared understanding of what is the foundation of most successful Technical Cooperation pooling exercises (including trust among sponsors, not just between sponsors and countries-beneficiaries);
  6. Contextually better analyzed: in-depth analysis of national contexts and underlying capacity constraints can be identified early and mitigated on project initiation phase;
  7. Cost-effective: most consulting meetings and part of trainings are being suggested for delivery online to save on per-diem, travel and printing of materials; 
  8. Technology empowered to achieve greater coordination: platform built-in workflow and private messaging system foster  coordination among sponsors and beneficiaries to better integrate technical cooperation process with relevant national development strategies; 
  9. Supportive to small, incremental, and context-sensitive initiatives that stand a better chance of success than comprehensive ones.